A Knight of Another Sort: Prohibition Days and Charlie Birger

by Gary DeNeal, Jim Ballowe (Foreword by)

Overview

In 1913 Charlie Birger began his career as a bootlegger, supplying southern Illinois with whiskey and beer. He was charismatic, with an easygoing manner and a cavalier generosity that made him popular. The stuff of legend, he was part monster, part Robin Hood. In the early days, he would emerge from his restaurant/saloon in tiny Ledford in Saline County with a cigar box full of coins and throw handfuls in the air for the children. Echoing the consensus on Birger, an anonymous gang member called him "enigmatic," noting that "he had a wonderful quality, a heart of gold. There in Harrisburg sometimes he'd support twelve or fifteen families, buy coal, groceries. . . . [But] he had cold eyes, a killer's eyes. He would kill you for something somebody else would punch you in the nose for."

Drawing from the colorful cast of the living, the dead, and the soon-to-be-dead—a state shared by many associated with Birger and his enemies, the Shelton gang—DeNeal re-creates Prohibition-era southern Illinois. He depicts the fatal shootout between S. Glenn Young and Ora Thomas, the battle on the Herrin Masonic Temple lawn in which six were slain and the Ku Klux Klan crushed, and the wounding of Williamson County state's attorney Arlie O. Boswell. As the gang wars escalated and the roster of corpses lengthened, the gangsters embraced technology. The Sheltons bombed Birger's roadhouse, Shady Rest, from a single-engine airplane. Both Birger and the Sheltons used armored vehicles to intimidate their enemies, and the chatter of machine gun fire grew common.

The gang wars ended with massive arrests, trials, and convictions of gangsters who once had seemed invincible. Charlie Birger was convicted of the murder of West City mayor Joe Adams and sentenced to death. On April 19, 1928, he stood on the gallows looking down on the large crowd that had come to see him die. "It's a beautiful world," Birger said softly as he prepared to leave it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780809322176
Publisher:	Southern Illinois University Press
Publication date:	12/10/1998
Series:	Shawnee Classics
Edition description:	2nd Edition
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.18(d)

About the Author

Gary DeNeal is the publisher and editor of Springhouse magazine. He is a lifelong resident of southern Illinois.

Editorial Reviews

"[A Knight of Another Sort] has the authenticity that comes from expert scholarship; the reading pleasure that comes from a fine writing talent; and the insights and understanding that come from Gary's having grown up in 'Charlie Birger country.' For the first time, the veil of dusty legend that has so long obscured the real personality has been cleared away, and DeNeal has revealed the complex and tragic lineaments of one of southern Illinois' most fascinating heroes."—Henry Dan Piper, coauthor of Land Between the Rivers

"DeNeal's research and recording, into one book, of all of the data on Charlie Birger and his contemporary cutthroats is a masterpiece not only in criminal history, but it is interestingly woven into a period of Illinois history that attracts 'old-timers' like me."—Harold Hartley, author of Way Down in Egyptland

From the Publisher